When Jesus washes you with baptismal water, you can rest assured that the Lion of Judah is on the move.
The life we are trying to manage, improve, and secure is not something to be mastered. It is something to be surrendered. And this is where everything changes. Because in Christ, the approval we are seeking has already been spoken.
It is within this charged atmosphere that Luther’s writings take on their full significance. His responses to the Turkish threat were not merely reactions to military events; they were rooted in a deep theological reflection on the nature of God’s rule over the world, the responsibilities of Christian rulers, and the role of the Church in times of crisis.

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When sin comes out of the shadows and makes itself known, Christians can rest in and declare Christ's resurrection.
But the biggest problem with the Pharisee’s prayer is that he judges himself compared to other people, rather than to God. Our natural tendency is to do just this.
A famous saying of Augustine (echoing Jesus in Luke 24:44) perhaps puts it best, “The New Testament lies concealed in the Old, the Old lies revealed in the New.”
The beauty of our gospel reading today is how it reveals Jesus as the One who comes not only for the strong in faith but also for those who are weak and walking away.
We have a Servant who stands in/is a substitute for Israel. This is the One who will atone for the sin of Israel—even the sin of the whole world.
The grass withered for them too, but they held on to God’s Word. They knew that was eternal, so they lived in it. They lived in his forgiveness.
A seed grows the kingdom of God. A whisper eventually turns the world upside down. A carpenter’s son from nowhere becomes the Savior of everyone. Such is God’s way.
Today, we begin a short series profiling women in the Bible (Who are not named Ruth or Esther). Both the stories of Ruth and Esther are beautiful, gracious, and profound. We love reading and rereading them. However, in an attempt to bring attention to more stories of more women throughout the Scriptures, we choose now to shift our focus. Our first woman, is, the first woman herself: Eve.
We do not live in the greatness of our own deeds. We boast in the greatness of one deed that God himself has done through Jesus Christ on the cross.
Jesus does not remain at a distance from our suffering. He fully enters it and bears its burden.
The night has passed and the day broken. In response to the morning dawn, birds sing, beasts arouse themselves and all humanity arises.
Calvary is our mountain of pardon. It is the place which reveals most definitively God’s plan to redeem and reconcile sinners to himself.